The Italian football club S.S.C. Napoli was established in 1926 under the name of Associazione Calcio Napoli. Since then, the team has gone through almost ten logotypes. However, there was some consistency in their design, too. The Napoli FC logo has almost always been a large “N” inside a light blue circle, the color probably inspired by the waters of the Gulf of Naples.
Napoli FC was founded as a result of a merger of two clubs, Internazionale Napoli and Naples Foot-Ball Club in 1922 as Internaples, and renamed Napoli in 1926, hence this date is considered an official one.
Throughout the years the club was not the most successful competitor in the Italian football league, and also struggled financially, this is why in the 1990s the team claimed itselfbankrupt but got a second chance in 2004 when the famous Hollywood film producer Aurelio Di Laurentiis decided to invest hisfunds into the rebirth of his favorite football club.
Today Naples played in Serie A, showing itself as a very strong team, and taking a position in the first part of the list.
What is Napoli?
Napoli is the name of a professional football club from Naples, Italy. The team was established in 1926 as Associazione Calcio Napoli, andits current name was only in 2004. Today Napoli plays in Serie A, the top-tier football league inItaly.
The very first badge of the FC Napoli was introduced in 1905 and stayed with the team for almost twenty years. It was a very bright and elegant medallion with the background featuring a vertically-striped pattern in two shades of blue, where all stripes were separated by thin gold lines. The golden verticals were supported by the gold circular frame of the logo and a stylized abbreviation in the same color.
Curiously, an emblem in the same palette, which is used by the football club today, was first introduced in 1911, and lasted for 15 years, stepping back after to give a road to lighter shades. The navy-blue and white circular medallion featured a bold geometric abbreviation in the center of the composition and a wide white frame with thin blue separation lines.
The logo, used by the football club at the beginning of the 1920s, featured a sharp rhomboid shape, with the USIN abbreviation in dark gold written against a bright blue background and enclosed into a white frame with the full name of the club written around its perimeter in distinctive sans-serif capitals.
The first logo Napoli adopted featured a prancing horse on a ball inside a blue ellipse. The horse was surrounded by the letters “A,” “C,” and “N” (for Associazione Calcio Napoli). The emblem stayed with the club for only one playing season and was replaced
The Napoli badge from 1927 featured a bold and strong, yet very simple, composition with the gold uppercase letter “N” in a classy serif typeface placed on a solid light blue circle in a thin gold outline. All the light elements of the logo were outlines in thin black for better contrast and visibility. Overall the simplicity of the shapes and the strong color contrast made this Napoli badge memorable and instantly recognizable when placed on the club’s uniforms.
The redesign of 1940 changed the circular shape of the Napoli medallion to a shield one. The bold white “N” in a more modern serif typeface was written against a bright blue background with no additional outline. The crest was framed into a juicy yellow shade.
In 1945 the color palette of the Napoli logo was simplified to just blue and white, and white here was the main player, used for the crest’s background. The blue “N” was redrawn in a bold geometric sans-serif typeface, creating a depiction of strength and stability. As for the frame of the logo, it got very thin and changed its color to blue too.
The bright shade of yellow was brought back to the official Napoli logo in 1959. But this was not the only change. The shape of the badge was changed again, and now it was a vertically oriented barrel-like medallion, with the yellow serif “N” supported by the framing of the same color.
A more ornate logo for the FC Napoli was created by the designers in 1962, however, it didn’t stay with the team for long. The central part of a wide crest in a traditional triangular shade was now taken by the image of a golden horse, accompanied by a circle in a red, white, and green color palette, repeating the shades of the Italian flag. The top part of the crest was decorated with the five Olympic rings.
In 1964 the Napoli crest was redrawn in flat blue and white and outlined in a thin golden frame. The blue background of the logo was decorated by a white vertical oval where the bold sans-serif “N” in blue was written. The additional lettering was arched under the oval, executed in a sold modern typeface, in white.
The circular shape of the Napoli logo was brought back in 1965. It was an airy and light badge with a white background, a stable enlarged “N” in blue, and a frame with two thin blue outlines. The logo was very simple, yet perfectly balanced and bright.
The redesign of 1965 kept the concept of the previous badge, but made it more modern and strong, rewriting the “N” in a custom and sharp font and emboldening the golden frame of the blue circle. The logo was accompanied by the “S. S. C. Napoli” inscription in the uppercase of a traditional sans-serif typeface arched along the bottom border of the frame, with three segments in green, white, and red (colors of the Italian flag) embedded into the gold surface.
The redesign of 1969 has introduced somewhat elegant and heraldic. A classic blue shield in a golden frame, supported by an ornament in the same color. The ornament was composed of three golden fleur-de-lys symbols, placed around the capital “N” in a sophisticated font with short sharp serifs.
For just one season, in 1971, the club was using a very complicated and ornate logo with heraldic motifs inscribed into a circular medallion. The composition had many textures and patterns, drawn mainly in red, blue, and yellow. The tiny blue crest with the golden “N” was located in the left part of the roundel.
The redesign of 1973 introduced the Napoli logo in a new shape. The rounded crests were replaced by a softened horizontally oriented rectangle with arched top and bottom sides. The frame was thickened up, and the golden “N” was extended and written in a slanted serif typeface, representing motion and energy.
Already in 1974, the roundel came back. It was the same composition, with the “N” on a solid blue background, but the golden shades of the character and the framing got calmer and deeper. Contrasting with a vivid and delightful shade of blue, the golden elements were not as visible as in the previous versions.
The color palette of the logo, designed for the club in 1980, was built on two shades of blue and white. It was a solid light blue circle with a bold white letter “N” in a strong and clean serif typeface on it. Instead of the framing, the medallion was enclosed into a “Societa Sportiva Calcio Napoli” inscription, written in all capitals of a traditional serif font around the perimeter, in dark blue.
Quite a cool version of the FC Napoli badge was created in 1982, but, unfortunately, didn’t stay with the club for long. It was a bold blue “N”, executed in a rounded sans-serif typeface and placed directly on a transparent background with no framing. However, it was not that simple: the left vertical bar of the character was stylized with a head of a donkey, drawn on its top in the same shade of blue.
The redesign of 1984 decided to modify the traditional Napoli roundel, redrawing it in a calmer blue and white color palette and refining the contours of the serif “N” in the center. The letter now had its upper left serif smoothly cut off. Another change was made to the frame of the medallion — it was now triple, with the blue line enclosed between the two white ones.
In 1985 the classic serif “N” was written in the center of the Napoli logo in its full shape. The solid blue roundel got a new framing — a wide white field with a thin black outline, which was supporting the black uppercase lettering with the full name of the club, written in a geometric sans-serif typeface around the perimeter of the medallion.
The color palette of the FC Napoli badge was intensified with the redesign of 1997. The frame gained a new medium-blue shade, while the additional lettering turned white and switched its typeface to an elegant serif one, which repeated the font of the white “N” in the middle. The central part of the medallion also got its shade darkened up.
A few modifications were made to the Napoli badge in 2002. The middle part with the white letter “N” remained untouched, while the framing became thick and blue, with the inscription turning white and the “S. p. A.” Added to it. The letters around the badge became a bit smaller but didn’t lose their thickness and visibility. With the new blue frame, the badge started looking more balanced and complete.
In 2004 the Napoli insignia was redesigned again. The new concept featured a wide dark-blue framing, separated from the main part of the medallion by quite a thick white line. The white capital “N” got more elegant and sharp, with enlarged triangular serifs and distinctive straight lines.
The lines of the badge were strengthened, cleaned, and refined in 2005, and this is also when the inscription was shortened to just “Napoli Soccer”, which was written along the bottom part of the circular frame of the Napoli badge. Its typeface was also slightly changed, with the main bars getting thicker and the serifs — shorter.
In 2006 the FC Napoli logo was significantly simplified. The circular medallion got all the framings and additional letterings removed, and now the solid blue roundel with the white serif “N” on it looked quite insecure and flat, but that was following all the modern design trends.
The redesign of 2007 introduced a modernized version of the blue and white Napoli emblem, with no additional lettering around its perimeter. Now the bold “N” and the thin inner outline of a smaller circle were the only white elements of the badge. Overall the medallion became more vivid and got a sense of motion, due to the addition of gradient blue shades and some gloss to its surface. The circle is now three-dimensional.
The redesign of 2024 has switched the bright shade of blue to a deep and confident navy. The badge was redrawn in a flat minimalistic style, with the dark blue “N” written in the same elegant serif against a plain white background and enclosed into a wide white frame with internal and external thin navy-blue outlines.
BLUE
HEX COLOR: #003C82;
RGB: (0 60 130)
CMYK: (100 86 21 7)
LIGHT BLUE
HEX COLOR: #12A0D7;
RGB: (18 160 215)
CMYK: (74 21 2 0)
WHITE
HEX COLOR: #FFFFFF;
RGB: (255 255 255)
CMYK: (0 0 0 0)